


Ice Cave

by VicenteValtieri



Series: A Thousand Lives Unlived [6]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Again, Death Fic, I can't think of another reason why I'm doign so many sad fics, I might be depressed..., M/M, Sad, definite one-shot, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 11:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12231528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VicenteValtieri/pseuds/VicenteValtieri
Summary: Starscream and Optimus Prime get stuck out in a blizzard.





	Ice Cave

Optimus had questioned, re-hashed, and thought over his decision over and over in the days it had taken them to make it to the mountains, but it continued to torment him.

Sometimes literally.

“Hey, be careful!” Starscream screeched as shards of the ice from Optimus’s pick hit the back of his neckcables.

“I’m doing the best I can, Starscream.” Optimus was this close to losing his temper at the moody and uncomfortable Seeker, but he had to focus on climbing the cliff face. 

“Easy for you to say.” Starscream muttered. “You’re not looking down.”

Optimus tried to remember that this was likely the first time the Seeker had ever been so helpless in his life and was in some sort of shock as well as traumatized, but it wasn’t easy. “Look, Starscream, just relax. I know the chips are annoying, but there is nothing I can do about them.”

Starscream was silent, which he took as assent and kept climbing, trying to navigate the treacherous cliff face. 

It was bitterly cold, which probably bothered Starscream more than the ice. He heard transformation seams activating as said Seeker pulled himself in as much as possible. Hopefully that would stop his complaining, at least for a little while.

The winds picked up the farther they went up the cliff-face. It was becoming dangerous to navigate when Optimus raised his servo to hack out another foothold and broke through into an ice cave. Taking it as a blessing, he dragged himself in, testing the floor and finding it solid. “We’re safe.” He told the shivering Seeker. “For now at least.”

“Great.” Starscream sighed. “So we’ll freeze to death instead of fall to it.”

“Oh, don’t start that again.” Optimus swung the mutilated mech off his back and laid him against the wall while he unpacked some energon and a warming blanket.

There was little left of Starscream. His wings were burned away, his limbs snapped off. Somehow, he had managed to protect his helm in the crash, but it must have been a miracle.

Optimus had been in a shuttle en route to a battlefield in the next system over when Starscream and his squadron had ambushed him. Their battle had raged too close to the planet’s atmosphere and the shuttle had gone down uncontrollably with Starscream sucked in too. The uncontrolled crash normally wouldn’t have phased the Seeker, who normally would have broken away from the shuttle with ease and landed unharmed, but he had been caught in the emergency thrusters and his wings had gone up in seconds.

When Optimus climbed from the wreck, he had found the Seeker tangled up in a piece of the shuttle and badly injured. He had had to cut Starscream free to save his life and cauterized his wounds to stop the bleeding. When Starscream woke, almost a day later on his trip up towards the mountains, he had found himself strapped to Optimus’s back with the distress tranciever like some bizarre back-pack.

He hadn’t been happy.

At least he was quiet for now. Optimus bundled him in the blanket as he scoped out the cave. It seemed safe, secure, though it was freezing and the temperature was dropping fast. Optimus began putting together a windbreak for them to hide beside, but it seemed futile, though he persevered.

“If you try to use me for a pillow again, I’ll never let you hear the end of it.” Starscream growled at him as the convoy tucked himself down into the windbreak and picked the Seeker up.

“How many times do I have to say it was a joke?” Optimus asked the Seeker, holding him on his lap and curling around his shivering frame, trying to preserve warmth.

“It wasn’t funny.” Starscream grunted softly. He seemed to be having trouble in-venting, “You realize that if we stay here much longer, we’re both going to offline from cold?”

“I know. We have to go into emergency stasis.” Optimus sighed. “And hope it warms up enough to trigger us to wake.”

“You first.” Starscream agreed. 

“All right.” Optimus set him down beside him and transformed into his alt-mode, glancing over at the Seeker. He had lost most of his transformation kibble and there had been a lot of other damage. “…Starscream, why don’t you go first?”

“No, go ahead, it’s not like I can do anything.” Said Seeker transformed into his alt mode as much as he could, which was basically a disembodied cockpit and some of the body of his jet mode. “See? Going.”

Optimus watched, listening for the telltale silence that would mean the Seeker was in stasis. “Starscream… You can’t go into stasis, can you?”

“…The protocols might be a little damaged.” Starscream admitted. “I can’t get them to engage. I was trying while you were climbing.”

Optimus transformed back to root mode and unwrapped the Seeker. He turned him over and found the large dent, right over his stasis module. With care, he peeled back the plating, causing Starscream to wince and whine, and found that the module was broken open and tell-tale pink was marring them. “Your module’s casing is… is broken and there’s energon in the circuits. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Then you should go to stasis.” Starscream told him again. “I’ll keep trying. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

“…I can wait a little longer.”

“Don’t be a sap. If you really want to help me, just shoot me or throw me over the cliff. I always wanted to die on the wing.” He muttered to himself. 

“You know I can’t do either of those things.”

“Yes, yes, blah, blah, blah, all life is precious. You’re going to die if you stay out of stasis too long in these temperatures.”

“I’ll keep an optic on my core temperature.” Optimus assured him.

“No, you won’t.” Starscream sighed. “Well, if you really want to kill yourself, it’s not like I can stop you.”

Optimus cradled him in one arm and pulled the blanket around them both. It wasn’t warm, but it was warmer, which was something.

Starscream was muttering something into his windshield. He broke Optimus out of his thoughts with a question. “Do you believe in the Well and the Pit and all that jazz?”

“The Matrix is the gateway to the Afterspark, Starscream. Of course I believe in the Well.” Optimus stroked the scarred plating where the Seeker’s wings had been.

“…Well, I suppose being Prime gives you pretty much the surety of Primus’s arms.” Starscream muttered.

“I don’t think you’ll go to the Pit.” Optimus told him.

“Oh, why not?” Starscream made light of the idea. “I’d send myself to the Pit.”

“I wouldn’t.” Optimus replied. “I’ve seen you. You’re a good Commander. A terrible subordinate, but a good Commander.”

“I’m also a terrible person.” Starscream pointed out. “And I’ve never been shy about that fact, so don’t try to deny it.”

Optimus shrugged. “You’re brusque, no nonsense, and complain incessantly, but I wouldn’t call you terrible. You’ve been trying to get me to stasis without worrying about you, so it’s not like you think of yourself one hundred perfent of the time.”

“Your vocalizer is glitching.” And wasn’t he one to talk? Every word was static and his lipplates were barely moving as his hydraulics froze shut. “You should go to stasis soon.”

“I have a few more minutes.” Optimus sighed, one servo gauging the temperature of the Seeker’s plating. It was almost as cold as the cave itself. Couldn’t be long. “Anyway, if I were the gatekeeper, I would snatch you into the Well in an instant.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not then. You’d let in all kinds of rep-“ His vox box fritzed out and their optics met. Starscream’s were frosting over, he probably couldn’t see and had no more than a few more klicks before his spark would start contracting.

Optimus rubbed his back, still wishing he could save the other. “Go on, Starscream. Sleep.”

The Seeker’s vents stuttered and died. His frame greyed over in Optimus’s arms. The convoy rocked him gently before wrapping him up in the warming blanket entirely. Then, he tried to go into stasis, transforming around Starscream. 

Even as he sunk into darkness, he knew the stasis could only be partial. His core temperature was too low, his module partially frozen. Still, Starscream had died comforted and he would die knowing he was doing his duty.

 

The Afterspark was a place of flickering lights and warm breezes, Optimus realized. He was still holding Starscream’s mutilated form. The Seeker was taking his sweet time waking up, though his vents and engines were purring softly. 

“I told you we would go to the Well.” Optimus told him when he woke up, looking down at the Seeker with a chuckle.


End file.
